It's Game Time with LHK Coaches!

In a circle at the West Elementary gym are 20 fourth graders stretching and getting ready to play a game for a new pilot program for Live Healthy Kids called LHK Coaches. Volunteer LHK Coach Julia Bowen stands in the center of the circle and guides the kids in a side stretch, arching her arm to one side. The kids follow suit. During this ten-minute stretch, Bowen asks them for suggestions for a different stretch to follow. She takes a few suggestions as other kids remain quiet; some chat with their friends and a few burst out in laughter as they share stories.

Bowen announces their first game. “Today, we’re going to play Lupo Manga Fruta!” Before she launches with the directions, she asks the kids what they think the language is. Wild guesses fill the air: Swedish! Mexican! Portuguese! After a few clues that included words like pasta and lasagna, the kids finally guess Italian. “So, who wants to be the wolf first?” she asks. A boy named Oliver volunteers. Soon after, Bowen brings the rest of the fourth graders in a huddle so they could think of their fruit. Oliver, meanwhile, stands in the back, awaiting his role as the Lupo to begin.

“Banana!” Oliver shouts. Two kids from a line at one end of the gym run as fast as they can, trying to evade the wolf from ‘eating’ or in this case, tagging, them. They both get away and reach the opposite end of the gym, the wall being their safe place. More fruit names are announced as the kids maneuver their way to safe territory. Alas, his classmate is tagged. Michael is now the wolf.

Games like these encourage kids to be more physically active not only in school but in their own time. With Lupo Manga Fruta and other games that the LHK Coaches Playbook provides, the game environment is inclusive and modifiable, so that kids at almost any level can play. Twice a month, each gym class at West will participate in the program and will learn how to play new games. These games require little to no equipment and can be played at recess and after school.

Currently, 12 of Ohio University’s MEDLIFE Chapter members volunteer in pairs as LHK Coaches. West’s gym teacher Allyson Horsley supervises the coaches and the kids as they play. “I think it’s great LHK has all these ideas for recess. The kids are excited that they are being tried for this pilot program, because they feel like they were specially chosen.” Horsley has even been getting requests from the students to play some of the games during her gym class. “It’s nice there are different options for kids to play. I already have incorporated games into my gym classes! The kids have already asked me.”

“I’m super pumped about it. It’s a lot of fun,” LHK Coordinator Laura Olbers said. “It’s been great working with MEDLIFE and with Allyson, who are offering four days of the month to us to do this program. It’s cool playing with the kids and getting feedback from some of them, especially from the older kids. All of them get really excited playing new games and adding their own element to it.”

For Bowen, being an LHK Coach has given her insight into the Athens community. “It’s a great way to be involved and getting to know the community’s health concerns.” As an education major, this opportunity was too good to pass up. “ I am most excited to be in the schools and work with the students. They’re all so much fun. They love seeing a new face every time and doing something different from the normal routine.”

Being more physically active isn’t the only goal for this program. It also helps to teach kids about following rules and expands their creativity in adapting their own rules to the games. “Sometimes not all of them understand the objective of the game right away,” explains OU freshman and volunteer LHK Coach Mackenzie Dangel. “[So I let] them raise their hands and ask me questions about the specific rules of the game. The kids usually figure out the games pretty fast once the momentum of the game picks up.” A Health Services Administration major, Dangel sees the value of the relationship between the coaches and the kids through the platform of the games. “I think the kids are getting to see that us ‘big kids’ like to be active and play games too. It’ll inspire them to want to stay active throughout their life because it can be really fun and there are many health benefits.”

LHK Coach Morgan Marando agrees. “[This] class is a time when kids get to let out all their energy and I think we help them do it in a fun and positive way!” Marando has witnessed the kids’ affinity for games that involved teamwork and cooperation. “I love seeing the kids join a group and be able to create strategies to help their team win the game!”

At the end of the LHK Coaches period, Horsley calls for the kids to stop, grab their things and line up by the door to head to their next class. “What I like about this game is that we get to run and chase people!” a girl responds with certainty. Her friend standing next to her interrupts and says with a smile, “I like everything!”

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.